[nickpsecurity]

"Walmart is Best Buy times 100. Blaming Walmart is just plain dumb as its a sign of something wrong with society. I wish we'd get over blaming things and get to being honest and admit the problem is people."

How is it just plain dumb to call Walmart greedy and apathetic when it's greedy and apathetic? The measures cited in the article always reduce crime wherever they're implemented. Best Buy, Target, Kroger, etc use them over here in high-crime areas. Even our Walmart does. The Walmart in article that started them back up had a big decline in calls. We can't blame them for the rest but it was clear they weren't doing their part before. All for some extra $$$.

Note: All these retailers have a risk management team that knows about effects of above practices. You can bet they voiced opposition to the changes since their headaches would go up. They were then ignored to see those numbers go up on the balance sheet.

[overcast]

What you're saying is that because of Walmart's business practices, that they somehow deserve to be robbed on a consistent basis. That's not how things work, this isn't an eye for an eye civilization.

[nickpsecurity]

No, that's the strawman point you're making then knocking down. What I said is that Walmart was facing high amounts of crime against it and its customers. It had two ways to respond to that:

1. A set of practices that cost some money but reduce amount of damagd to it and its customers. This is the baseline response it originally had plus what many competitors are currently doing.

2. Get rid of all of those, let crime increase dramatically, pocket the money, and foot the expenses to taxpayers.

I think eliminating 1 for 2 is unethical and damaging to locals, including customers victims of resulting crime. I support allowing them to do it but encourage police departments to make it cost them as in the article. That they did a 180 after that shows this is entirely motivated by profit.

[protomyth]

Who is the victim of the crime? You are blaming the victim for behavior of other people. If it wasn't obvious from my two city examples, quite a lot of Walmarts don't have this problem.

[emp_zealoth]

The victim is the public because they bear the cost of constant police engagement in Walmart, costs that Wallmart is trying to offload to balloon their bottom line even more

[nickpsecurity]

Exactly what Im saying. Plus robberies, rapes, and/or murders if violent thugs see Walmart as a free for all with low risk of conviction due to corporate apathy. Article indicated it was already happening. Does in worst parts of our larger city when security investments are weak.

[nickpsecurity]

The "victim" increased the crime intentionally to make more money. The cost of dealing with the increase was shouldered to taxpayers. They also were put at increased risk of physical harm. I think that means there's two victims: Walmart and taxpayers. That's why the one city declared Walmart a nuisance. They weren't allowed to externalize their problem onto others for free anymore. Once economics changed, suddenly Walmart decided it knew how to reduce crime. Which it did.